Outlawed
at the beginning of the 20th Century, private corporations are once
again owning and operating prisons for profit. A controversial issue
which dates back to the days that followed the Emancipation Proclamation,
CORRECTIONS examines its re-appearance today amidst globalization and
the most awesome growth of prisons in all of modern history, painting
a complex portrait of what many are calling the "prison industrial complex."

THE PRIVATE PRISON

In
the mid-1980's, fifteen years of massive and unprecedented growth within
the US prison system hit a snag -- it ran out of money.

When
the state wants to build a new prison, it traditionally asks the voters
to approve the cost through a bond issue. But this time, voters throughout
the country began to say no.

So
many turned to private investment, to venture capital, both to fund
new prison projects and to run the prisons themselves for costs around
$30 to $60 per bed, per day. This began what we know today as the for-profit,
PRIVATE PRISON INDUSTRY.

1970
: 280,000 prisoners | 2000 : 2,000,000 prisoners

In
the late 1960's, the US began to expand the powers of law enforcement
agencies around the country, generating by the 1970's an unprecedented
reliance on incarceration to treat its social, political, economic and
mental health problems.

By
calling new acts crimes, and by increasing the severity of sentencing
for other acts, US citizens witnessed a "prison boom." Soon, prison
overcrowding surpassed prison construction budgets, and politicians
that had promised to build new prisons could no longer build them.

So
in 1984, a number of Tennessee investors with close friends in the legislature
recognized a business opportunity and formed CORRECTIONS CORPORATION
OF AMERICA (CCA). Their plan was to use venture capital to build a new
prison and -- like a hotel -- lease their beds to the state in a profit-making
endeavor.

Today,
nearly ten percent of US prisons and jails (meaning 200,000 prisoners)
have been privatized, the three largest firms being CCA, WACKENHUT CORRECTIONS
CORPORATION and CORNELL CORRECTIONS, INC. The federal government also
contracts with them to house a growing number of undocumented immigrants
and resident aliens, while some of the companies have facilities in
countries outside the USA.

Correctional
Corporations have amassed large political influence through government
ties, lobbying power and campaign contributions, while attempting to
convert the discourse of justice into the language of the marketplace.
In this way, they accuse government agencies as having a monopoly on
corrections, espouse the need to downsize and cut through red tape.
They claim that they can run prisons more efficiently and cheaper, doing
a better job and saving the taxpayers money.

At
the same time, prison privatization has met severe criticism. From human
rights activists to criminologists, economists, religious and community
leaders and even correctional officers' unions, privatization has been
accused of corruption, corrosive incentives, and a resemblance to a
historically racist practice of the old confederate U.S. South: CONVICT
LEASING.

Some
claim that private prisons really don't save money, but like any for-profit
business, attempt to maximize their own profit. This results in a reduction
of essential services within the prison -- from medical care, food and
clothing to staff costs and security -- at the endangerment of the public,
the inmates and the staff.

Other
critiques are concerned with the power and influence of for-profit prisons.
At a time when much of public discourse is questioning the war-on-crime
and the war-on-drugs being fought as wars, critics claim that
the incentive of profit skews public discourse away from reasoned
debate about viable solutions to social problems.

And
finally, grasping the demographic make-up of today's prisons in the
US and the history that's produced this make-up (roughly 50% African-American,
35% Latino and 15% White), the privatization of prisons threatens to
re-institute a link between race and commerce that has not been seen
since the 1800's.

There
are also different ways that those who make the laws profit from the
laws they make through prison privatization.

The
most direct are those who own stock in private prisons, such as former
Tennessee Governor and his wife, Lamar and Honey Alexander, who owned
stock in the early Corrections Corporation of America. There are also
those officials who are on the actual payroll of these corporations,
such as Manny Aragon, the New Mexico legislator who Wackenhut hired
as a lobbyist for New Mexico when they were trying to begin privatization
in that state.

A
third way comes from campaign contributions and political action committee
moneys, through which the corporations financially reward those officials
that allow private prisons in their states or jurisdictions, or who
pass laws that will continue prison expansion -- public or private --
thus expanding the resource base of the privatization industry. (These
are often the same law makers who are handsomely rewarded by public
sector groups such as correctional officers' unions and other law enforcement
groups, who also profit from criminalization and mass imprisonment).

Less
directly, the privatization of prisons contributes to and buoys the
overall "culture" of law enforcement and criminal justice, one that
levels our common sense understanding of the causes of our social problems
and puts as their solution responses of violence, force and containment.
By expanding the criminal justice system beyond the grasp of elected
officials and civil servants, private prisons grow this culture in ways
that are both ideological and practice-related.

The
private sector also serves as a "career alternative" for many, hiring
bureaucrats and officials from the public sector who are either looking
for a raise and stock options, or are looking to come out of retirement.
These include people from the FBI, CIA, various state and federal departments
of corrections, sheriffs, and even former attorney generals.

And
most importantly, public officials profit from prison privatization
as it allows them to act with less accountability to the public, allowing
prisons to be built without passing prison bonds for the public to vote
on, and not having to worry how one will budget their inflammatory and
expensive tough-on-crime rhetoric.

Louisiana State Secretary of Corrections, Richard Stalder, cuts the ribbon to kick off the burgeoning 1999 American Correctional Association Trade Show.

Although
the predominant myths about PRIVATIZATION (whether of prisons or anything
else) claim that privatization means tax savings for the public, it
actually costs us more. Even though on paper a private agency or corporation
may present a lower figure to do the same job, once that money has
been taken out of the public's hands, it no longer remains ours.

In
the public sector, tax money tends to make more of itself, meaning
that each public dollar paid through one social service will spend
itself four to eight times more elsewhere within the public sector.
Once public money goes into private hands however, that money stays
there and is gone for good. This is especially true if we consider
that privatization corporations are usually given handsome tax breaks
and "incentives," in the form of what some people call "corporate
welfare," which means we are even less likely to see that money
again.

And
finally, if we remember that the people who privatize are generally
wealthy, this reminds us of an old story where the rich get richer
and the poor get poorer -- where the hard earned tax money from each
of us is funneled into the hands of the wealthy few for their own
personal gain. While we each like to think we don't live in a society
like that, today this is justified to us through the myth that "free
markets" are the same thing as democracy; that if everything
is privatized and ruled by the law of the dollar then democracy will
be ensured.

Add
this to the fact that prisons do not make us safer and are by far
the most expensive way of dealing with what we call "crime,"
we suffer other costs as well. Social costs of broken families and
communities -- of both victims and perpetrators; hidden financial
costs like paying for the foster care of prisoners' children; what
we will only pay again when a prisoner re-emerges more desperate,
addicted, uneducated and disenfranchised than they went in; the vengeance
our society seeks through prisons and punishment will cost us twice
the price of ensuring true equality, opportunity and social health
at the roots of our society.

The
PRIVATIZATION OF PRISONS is but one case in which a few people exploit
our society's larger problems for their own gain, at a cost we all
bare and get little in return.